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Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Turkish government bans political slogans during soccer matches

Turkish interior minister Muammer Güler has banned the
chanting of political slogans during the country’s next soccer season in a bid
to reign in militant football fans who played an important role in mass
anti-government protests in June.

The ban follows the recent indictment of 94 protesters, 20
of whom are members of Carsi, the influential militant support group of storied
Istanbul club Besiktas JK. The soccer fans have been charged with membership in
an illegal organization.

“We are adding bad political and ideological slogans to the
list of illegal demonstrations in football stands, or behavior not complying
with sporting ethics,” Mr. Güler told an Istanbul sports conference.

He said
plainclothes policemen would be deployed in those areas of stadiums where
militant soccer fans gather and that a tender for the installation of cameras
would be issued in the near future.

The minister said the ban was an implementation of Law No.
6222 known as the Law on Violence in Sports which went into effect in 2011. The
law outlaws “any slogans exceeding the limits of sports.”

Mr. Güler said that
it was “clear that political and ideological slogans do not comply with sport’s
spirit. That includes profanity or non-sporting behavior. The rules are related
to all of those.”

Mr. Güler said that more than 4,000 soccer fans had been
investigated since the law came into effect, 2,000 of which had been banned to
avert violence. “The controls will be more effective in the future,” he said.
He added the government was building a databank of those charged with sports
crimes.

Carsi joined forces in June with supporters of Istanbul arch
rivals Fenerbahce and Galatasary to initially protect environmental protesters
opposed to the destruction of a historic park on the city’s iconic Taksim
Square against a heavy-handed police crackdown. The street battle-hardened fans
confronted security forces as the protest mushroomed into massive
demonstrations against Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s haughty
and majoritarian style of government.

Officials said the ban was particularly urgent because
Besiktas would be playing its home games in Istanbul club Kasimpasa SK’s Recep
Tayyip Erdogan Stadium while its own stadium is under renovation.

Mr. Güler said Besiktas would be obliged to force spectators
to sign a pledge not to chant political slogans before they would be allowed to
attend a match. Failure to abide by the pledge could result in cancellation of
season tickets.

The ban and the charges against Carsi reflect Mr. Erdogan's
attempts to criminalize the fans and the protesters in a bid to cater to a
traditionalist and conservative base and distinguish himself from the more
modernist façade of his Islamist rival, Fethullalh Gulen, a powerful,
self-exiled, 76-year old imam with a strong popular and media base and
influence in state institutions like the police and the judiciary.

Mr. Gulen, shared Mr. Erdogan's criticism of the protesters
and blaming of international media but in contrast to the prime minister
quickly backed away from denouncing them as vandals and foreign agents. Instead
he urged his followers not to underestimate the grievance underlying the
protests and to accept that his movement as well as the government had not done
enough to resolve social problems.

At the same time, he sought to drive a wedge
between the protesters by praising the original peaceful environmentalists
demonstrating against the cutting down of trees in Taksim's Gezi Park as
opposed to violent protesters, a reference to the soccer fans.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in
Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of
Würzburg, and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile